The Sixth Wicked Child

by J. D. Barker

  “Vincent, it’s Libby and Anson.”

  No reply.

  “Maybe he’s gone.” I knew he was in there, though.

  Libby knocked again.

  “No,” Vincent said from the other side of the door.

  Libby looked at me, then at the door. “No? No, what?”

  “No you. No Anson. No anybody. Nobody. Just no.”

  “We just want to talk.”

  “Good for you. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Libby just stood there, and I didn’t know what else to do so I just stood there, too. Then she knocked again.

  Vincent raised his voice. “I will throw both you little shits out the fucking window if you don’t leave me alone!”

  I let out a breath, thinking it just might be my last. “Vincent, we found a truck out in the barn.”

  Silence again.

  When the door opened, it wasn’t Vincent standing there, but Kristina. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore a Bangles t-shirt, a pair of pink running shorts, and no shoes. I don’t think she had a bra on. “What truck?”

  44

  Poole

  Day 5 • 1:20 PM

  As Hurless had said, a black Cadillac Escalade with dark tinted windows waited for them at the curb in front of Upchurch’s house. The only occupant was a driver. A man in his late fifties in a neatly pressed black suit. He got out, scrambled to open the doors in the frigid air, and ushered them inside—Poole took the front seat, Nash got in back.

  The driver refused to tell them where they were heading.

  Poole had never been in a car this clean. The black leather was polished to a factory shine. Not a single speck marred the windows. Aside from the wet winter sludge Poole tracked in on his shoes, even the floor mats were clean, as if someone switched them out between passengers.

  “There’s a bar back here,” Nash said. “A fully stocked bar. Snacks, too. If you look in the back seat of my car, you’d be lucky to find some dried up special sauce on a McDonald’s wrapper and maybe half a bottle of water.” He reached into the front seat with a Twix bar. “You want?”

  Poole ignored him and turned back to the driver. “Whose car is this?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” the man said.

  “You realize I’m a federal agent?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have orders.” He made several turns and followed the signs onto 290 East, toward the lake.

  When Poole didn’t take the candy bar, Nash settled back into his seat and tore open the wrapper. He was halfway through it when he said, “Why is the FBI on this case?”

  “You know why.”

  Nash took another bite, bits of chocolate falling from his mouth as he spoke. “No, actually I don’t. We were told you were taking over because Bishop got away and we weren’t making headway fast enough. It doesn’t work that way, though. The FBI can’t claim jurisdiction unless the crimes cross state lines. Not unless local law enforcement invites you. All the initial murders took place in or around Chicago, every single one of Bishop’s victims. I know Metro didn’t invite you.”

  “We’ve got connected murders in South Carolina and Louisiana, too,” Poole countered, unsure he even wanted part of this conversation.

  “Discovered after FBI took over the case,” Nash reminded him. “Not before.”

  “My orders came directly from my supervisor, SAIC Hurless.”

  “Who picked up the phone and invited him to the party? Where did his orders come from?” Nash finished off the candy bar and tossed the wrapper on the floor next to him. “We figure that out, and I think we’ll know who owns this car.”

  The driver exited 290 at LaSalle and made a left on State Street.

  “There are other ways.” Poole reached forward and opened the glove box.

  “Sir, please don’t do that.” The driver glanced over, then looked back at the road. Traffic on State was heavy for this time of day.

  Rifling through the various items in the glove box, Poole found the registration, but it only read Elite Rentals and Transportation Services, LLC. He found an old parking ticket, the owner’s manual, and a .38 in a leather holster. “Do you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?”

  “Yes, sir. Renewed it last month. I’m at the range at least once each week.”

  “So, are you a driver or security?”

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he switched on his blinker and turned onto Wabash.

  “Are you with law enforcement?”

  The driver made another left, then pulled to a stop at the curb on the right. “We’re here, sir.”

  Looking out the window at the gold awning over the sidewalk, Nash whistled. “The Langham Hotel. Came here for a wedding once and ended up in the pool. They’ve got twinkle lights on the ceiling. That was one hell of a party.”

  “I don’t think we’re here for a wedding,” Poole muttered.

  The driver stepped out and rounded the Escalade, opened first Poole’s door, then the one in the back. “You are to go directly to room 1218.”

  He left them standing on the sidewalk, arctic air swirling all around.

  Poole stared at the front door and cupped his hands in front of his mouth. “I’m not sure I like this. Who even knows we’re here?”

  “I texted Clair and gave her the room number. If I don’t text her again in the next fifteen minutes, she’ll send reinforcements.”

  Poole pushed through the heavy glass doors into the hotel lobby with Nash behind him. As instructed, they ignored the bustle at the registration counter, concierge, and bellhops and made their way to the bank of elevators. When the center lift opened, they stepped inside and rode up to the twelfth floor, where they were greeted by a very large man in a dark navy suit, shaved head, and a goatee, holding a clipboard.

  Poole’s eyes went from the bulge under the man’s left shoulder to another on his right ankle. Two guns, maybe more. This man seemed to do the same, first noting Poole’s weapons, then Nash’s. If this fazed him, his face didn’t give it away. “Names?”

  Poole told him.

  He scanned the list, flipped to a second page, then took another look at the first. “Give me a minute.” Without waiting on a reply, he disappeared down the hallway and around a bend.

  “Secret Service?” Nash muttered.

  Poole shook his head. “They don’t allow facial hair.”

  “Seriously?”

  The man returned a moment later with Anthony Warnick from the mayor’s office behind him. Warnick didn’t bother with pleasantries. “This way.”

  Poole exchanged a glance with Nash and followed after him. The man with the clipboard returned to his post at the elevator.

  Another man stood at the double doors to room 1218. As they approached, he slipped a key card into the reader and opened the doors for them.

  Not a room.

  A suite.

  Practically an apartment or a small house.

  The coffered ceilings were at least ten feet tall, and the far wall was nothing but glass looking out over the lake. Two couches flanked a large table at the center of the room. There was a dining area off to the left and several more doors on the right—a bathroom and two more, which were closed, most likely bedrooms. Ornate rugs covered the hardwood floors, and tasteful prints lined the walls. The furniture was contemporary in earth tones with subtle accents of color.

  There were half a dozen people inside, men and women, all bustling about, either on phone calls or talking in small groups. Several looked up at them as they stepped into the room, then went back to whatever they were doing. On a desk near the windows, a woman sat, oblivious to the activity around her. She wore headphones, a beige sweater, and jeans, and her eyes were fixed on the display of a large MacBook Pro. Two video windows were open—one with Anson Bishop, the other with Sam Porter, both from the interviews Poole had conducted earlier. Porter’s image was frozen, Bishop’s was running.

  “What is this?” Poole frowned.

  “Made
line Abel,” Warnick replied. “She’s a leading expert in kinesics. That’s the study of—”

  “I know what it is,” Poole interrupted. “Why does she have access to those videos? Did you even get a warrant for Porter’s? Who gave it to you?”

  Warnick ignored the questions. “I don’t have time for that. I need to know which of these two men is telling the truth. You’re not moving fast enough.” He shot Nash a disapproving glance. “Neither of you.”

  Nash huffed but didn’t say anything.

  Warnick placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She paused the video, removed her headphones, and looked up at them. Her eyes grew when she saw Poole. “Frank?”

  Warnick frowned. “You know each other?”

  “Agent Abel trained me.”

  She smiled. “It’s just Maddie Abel now. Maddie is fine. I’m private sector. I left the Bureau three years ago.”

  “I need to know who’s lying,” Warnick repeated, glaring down at her. “The two of you can catch up later.”

  The smile left her face. She turned back to the videos. “Well, they both are. They’re also both telling the truth. I’ll need a lot more time with this. Both men are skilled, they’re clearly familiar with kinesics, and they’re making conscious and subconscious decisions to mask the appearance of deception. Agent Poole here did a wonderful job asking questions to establish a baseline and with follow-up questions in order to uncover falsities in their statements, but they’re both deploying countermeasures on par with his tactics.”

  Warnick’s face grew red. “I brought you in here because you’re the leading expert. I need answers, not convoluted bullshit. One of these men is responsible. I need to know which one.”

  She sighed and rolled her hand over the edge of the table. “Maybe with additional reference material. Can you get me more videos of Bishop? Porter, too, maybe interviews he conducted in the past. Something like that would be helpful. If I can pick up his understanding of kinesics, I might be able to exclude that behavior as I watch this one and focus on aspects he might have overlooked. It’s physically impossible to mask every sign of deception.”

  Warnick snapped his fingers, and a younger man who had been listening behind them crossed the room and got on his phone. Warnick then said, “We can get more on Porter, but there’s nothing on Bishop. This is it.”

  Biting the inside of her cheek, Maddie hit play on the Bishop video again and zoomed in on his temple. She hit pause a moment later. “That’s not going to work, either.”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I can pick up on an unsub’s pulse in the video, but the quality on this camera isn’t high enough. With Bishop, I’m not sure that would work anyway. He seems to have a good handle on his involuntary actions—breathing and such—I bet his pulse is steady through the entire interview.”

  “Responsible for what?”

  This came from Nash. The only thing he’d said since entering the suite. “You told us you needed to know which of these men was responsible. What did you mean by that?”

  For a second, Warnick looked like he might fire back some defensive answer, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned toward the far side of the suite. “This way.”

  They followed him to the door on the left of the bathroom—he twisted the knob and stepped aside.

  All the lights were blazing in the large master space—overhead cans, lamps on the dressers, another at a small desk. The ensuite at the back was lit up, too. A king-size four-poster bed stood at the center of the room. The rumpled sheets and duvet were bunched up near the foot. A video camera on a tripod was set up a few feet off to the side, the lens pointing at the bed. Men’s clothing was scattered around the floor—suit pants and jacket, shirt, tie, socks, boxers. In the middle of the bed, spreading out from the center and covering at least two-thirds, was a brownish-red stain.

  Poole and Nash stepped inside.

  Warnick came up behind them. “The mayor’s been missing since nine-thirty last night, and yes, that is blood.”

  45

  Poole

  Day 5 • 2:00 PM

  “The mayor’s blood?” Nash took a step closer to the bed.

  “I have no idea,” Warnick replied. “We found the room like this.”

  Unlike the others, Poole hadn’t moved after entering the bedroom. “This is a crime scene. It should be cordoned off. How many people have been through here?”

  “Too many.” Warnick walked over to the dresser. “The mayor’s security staff wiped down every surface and tried to clean up the mess on the bed before they called me. Spent at least an hour contaminating every inch of this space. Damn idiots.”

  “If someone hurt the mayor, why would his security staff try to cover it up?” Nash asked.

  Poole knew the answer. “Because this isn’t the first time the mayor left a mess behind. They thought they were helping.”

  Warnick eyed him, considering his response. “The mayor’s…escapades…can sometimes get rough. Nothing too crazy, the women are always well compensated. They know what they’re getting into. We’ve had bruising in the past. There was a broken finger once. Never anything like this, never blood.”

  “But because he’s hurt them in the past, his staff assumed…”

  “They’re a bunch of idiots,” Warnick repeated.

  Nash circled the room, looked under the bed, in the bathroom, the closet. “Where’s the woman?”

  Warnick shrugged. “They assumed she ran off. There’s no sign of her. I pulled the security footage from the hotel and it’s all messed up—the time stamps are off, the footage is completely out of order. They’ve got cameras in all the public spaces, elevators too, but they can’t seem to find a single shot of anyone entering or leaving this suite last night.”

  Poole glanced over at Nash, but neither commented.

  Nash had paused at the dresser, next to Warnick. Both men were looking up at the mirror.

  When Poole joined them, he understood why. On the mirror, written in what looked like soap, were the words Father, forgive me.

  Same as the women found this morning. Same as the victims at the hospital and the man down in Simpsonville. He glanced around the room, at the floor. “Did you find salt anywhere?”

  “Salt?” Warnick shook his head. “No. Why would there be salt?”

  Nash must have thought the same thing. He looked around the room and spotted something near the bathroom door. He went over and knelt down. “There’s some here. Not much. Just a little in the carpet.”

  Poole nodded at the trash can in the corner. The remains of a paper salt packet lay at the bottom. Nash pulled an evidence bag from his pocket and used the plastic to pinch the packet, pick it up, and seal it inside. He shoved the bag back in his pocket.

  Poole checked the video camera… empty. “Do you have the tape?” he asked Warnick.

  “We found the camera like that.”

  Poole wasn’t sure he believed him. Whether that tape contained evidence or incriminating images of the mayor, it wouldn’t be something his people would want in the wrong hands, and Poole quickly got the impression any hands other than Warnick’s were wrong. “Failure to give me that tape would be considered tampering with evidence.”

  Warnick took a step closer. “There is no tape.”

  His eyes met Poole’s, and neither man looked away.

  “What do we know about her?” Nash said, leaning over the bed.

  Warnick’s gaze remained on Poole a moment longer. Then he turned to Nash. “The woman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s where things get muddy.”

  Nash chuffed. “Seriously?”

  Warnick ignored him. He turned his head back toward the open door and shouted, “Beddington!”

  A moment later a man came in. Heavyset, all muscle, forties with thinning dark hair. The stubble on his face and the condition of his suit suggested he’d been there all night. He had bags under his eyes. Warnick made introductions. “David here has been with
the mayor’s security detail since election day.”

  “Before that,” Beddington replied. “He hired me when he was still on the campaign trail. Back when he was just on the city council.”

  Warnick rolled his hand impatiently through the air. “Tell them what you told me, about the woman.”

  Beddington gave Warnick a nervous glance.

  “It’s fine. They’re under orders—it doesn’t leave this room.”

  Poole wasn’t aware of any such order, but he didn’t say anything. Neither did Nash.

  Beddington shifted his weight to his left leg and looked at the floor. “The mayor has a particular service he uses for these encounters. He’s used them for some time now.” He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a cheap phone. “We always call from one of these, never our real numbers, because—”

  “We understand why,” Warnick interrupted. “Get to the point.”

  Beddington nodded and dropped the phone back in his jacket. “I was running late, so I called from the car. I got here, and she was already in the bedroom—I caught a few glimpses of her walking around. The mayor, too. He closed the door when he saw me. I had no idea how she beat me in this damn weather, but she did. I didn’t think much about it, didn’t have a chance. I got distracted by the problem.”

  “The problem?”

  “The mayor’s wife. She knows what he’s up to, so she calls me. Every time, like clockwork. He says they have some kind of open relationship, but talking to her all these years, it ain’t so open. Anyway, I went out in the hall to talk to her, calm her down, ended up taking the elevator to the mezzanine level—service is better there—and we talked for about an hour. She’s nice. Easy to talk to. When I came back up to the room, I found a woman from the agency standing in the hallway, the one I called for. She said nobody was answering the door—this wasn’t the woman I saw inside an hour earlier, this was someone else entirely—younger, blonde. I knew something was wrong at that point. I paid her, told her to leave. Then I used my key card to get back into the room and found this mess.” He gestured toward the bloody bed. “I called the other guys, they started to clean things up, and I saw the mayor’s burner phone on the dresser. I had figured he phoned the agency, beat me to it, ’cause I was late. When I checked the log, I realized he hadn’t made the call either. Other calls were there, but not that call. Neither of us called that first woman. That’s when I called Mr. Warnick.”